Where Christmas's past, present and future visit....

26 Dec 2007

Christmas is over.

Like Air Force Wife says Holiday Hangover....

I swore to never consume a chocolate covered anything again as of 12 noon yesterday. Oye...

I must say, the one thought that kept going through my head over the past few days was that, some of you spent this last Holiday alone.. That is hard, and we all do it differently. No one here at SB will ever claim to be an expert on such matters. You, and your service members were prayed for, thought of, and thanked at our table. You were not far from our thoughts.

We seem to have a mantra here at SpouseBuzz.

"Do what you need to do."

Some of us "do"exceedingly well, some of squeeze by. By choice. During my Husbands last deployment, I had 2 children under 2, and did not fuss with decorations. My MIL, sent a fresh arrangement for my mantel, and it was beautiful. I squeaked by. I will note here, I was highly criticized for my method of celebrating Christmas. But it was for my sanity. Most of the criticism was also from people who would never EVER know what it is like to be in my shoes. So I took it with the proverbial grain of salt.

I will also say here, the Christmas after his return tugged at my heart strings. We both had a hard time that first Holiday home after such a long deployment. He felt guilty for being home, knowing his "Brothers", were away from family at such an important time of the year. I felt guilty, for those families that soldier had been killed in action. That first Christmas he was home, well it was a melancholy one for sure. Our dinner table was quiet.

We finally had to sit down and decide, it was OK to celebrate and laugh, and delight in the Holiday. We certainly would not want anyone to be somber on such an occasion.

We celebrated this year, and laughed, and smiled. A trace of melancholy in our hearts, but mostly for those our hearts miss this time of year.

We could not help but wonder what next Christmas will bring. We are getting better at managing our own emotional expectations of this Season.